The law is good, that is, unless we try to keep it. Trying to keep the law leads to one thing-death. In 2 Corinthians 3, Paul contrasts law-keeping with the ministry of the Spirit, which is the “ministry of righteousness." I love the sound of that, the ministry of righteousness, the Holy Spirit ministering the righteousness of Christ into the inner man.
This powerful chapter culminates in this beautiful verse:
“Now the Lord is that
Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with
open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the
same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
Now, I always thought that we looked through the glass to
see the Lord, but that word glass in the Greek means a mirror in which one sees his reflection. When was the last time that you looked through a mirror? A
mirror reflects your image. Paul said that the gospel is summed up thus: "Christ in me, the hope of glory." And a verse dear to many believers capturing this truth that “I no longer live, but
Christ lives in me….by faith in the Son of God…” Galatians 2:20.
As I contemplated that mirror Paul spoke of, I recalled the
time in my own life when the Lord gave me a clear understanding that Jesus lived inside of me, and it broke the heavy chains of addiction to cigarettes in a moment. After years of trying to quit, I was again at the end of my own resources, and
I was living the verse from Romans 7 where Paul wrote that, “...the good that I would I do
not; but the evil which I would not, that I do…oh wretched man that I am, who
will deliver me from this body of death!”
One day, at the end
of my rope with this particular struggle, I complained to some young man at
church who told me that I needed to go home and read Romans chapters 6-8. (I miss those days when we just went to the Bible!) When I did, I could not believe
eyes. Right there in the pages of the Bible I was reading my own struggle as if I had written it myself, and
there was even an answer! I was stunned.
Long story short, I quit trying to quit because after many
years of prayers, altar ministry, and pronouncements
of freedom and various quitting tactics, I only grew worse. So I began searching my Bible. No naming, proclaiming, hanging up and framing...I was just reading and seeking God as if my life depended on it. But I definitively and summarily
quit quitting. It wasn’t working. Instead, I hungrily searched the scriptures
to see how I could attain the freedom spoken of in Romans 8.
Over a period of nine months I filled three notebooks with these
powerful verses with references, cross-references, and cross-references of my
cross-references. Dake study Bibles are no joke. I was on a mission. I was
digging for gold. I was not at all happy with the state of affairs in my life because the word
told me that Christ had set me free, but I was not free, and I was not willing
to accept the wide gulf between the word of God in Christ and my life. I wanted the whole truth,
or nothing at all. (I was fairly radical at that age.)
I said long story short, but I should have said short story
long, or perhaps long story long. (Have you ever noticed that people with the gift of
brevity never say that phrase?) Over
those months, I simply immersed myself in study about the law of the Spirit. I
love that phrase, the “law of the Spirit,” it just makes me want to shout.
I read that sin shall no longer have dominion over me! I
really can’t tell you how exciting that was to see, because sin had had so much
dominion over me that it had destroyed me completely. In my darkest hour years
before this, my mother told me that she had looked into my eyes and her blood ran cold
because there was no life in my eyes. I knew the dominion of sin well.
As I continued my search for help, I noticed that it was all
about the Spirit through faith. I read over and over about the Spirit by faith in connection to overcoming sin. So, okay, the Holy Spirit operating by faith gives me dominion over sin.
Awesome! Now how do I do that? None of this was at all clear to me.
At the end of that nine month period of study, something began to happen. I began to experience the reality that Jesus Christ Himself was living in me, and Jesus, well let me tell you that He is NOT a smoker!
It was not an
intellectual knowledge, rather, it was a living, breathing reality bubbling up
in my spirit man, like a powerful ball of glory and might and joy unspeakable all rolled into one super-powered heavenly dynamo! Interestingly, one
of the definitions of the word “meditation” means to study, so basically I was
meditating consistently for a nine month period. I didn’t read about anything
else, only what it would take to be free. I was on a quest, and I was totally
focused on the goal.
The week leading up to my deliverance, right as this revelation was growing in my spirit, I began to get
attacked by the enemy at night, and that was when it dawned on me that there were demonic attachments to my addiction, and my desire for freedom grew even stronger. Finally, the day came
when the chains broke, and the freedom was so complete that it was as if I had
never smoked a cigarette a day in my life. What's more, the revelation of Christ in me
and the freedom that He gives us through the work of the cross was truly like an atom bomb exploding inside
of me. For three days straight I was inwardly preaching the glories of Christ
so that at times I felt as if I was going to implode. The power inside me was seeking a release, so one day in a kind of glorious despair, I called my pastor and
told him that I needed to testify to what the Lord had done or I feared I would actually explode into a thousand pieces! Thank goodness he said that I could share that coming Sunday.
The Lord did not let
me prepare but instructed me to begin with one verse, and said that He would
take it from there. The verse was this:
“For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:10
As I was waiting to speak, all that I felt was a distinct power inside of me that was wanting to smash the kingdom of darkness! Smash the lies of the enemy! Smash the lie that we won’t be free until we die, smash the lie that God is mad at those who are struggling with sin, and smash the bondage! I had a very powerful, clear desire to put a dent into the kingdom of darkness-it was as if I could see nothing else.
I so love the power of the testimony! I heard many
stories of freedom and even bible studies on the subject of Romans 8 that were commenced
after that testimony. I have no idea what I said, only that I was declaring the
truth that who the Son sets free is free INDEED! Not free to still struggle,
not free to white-knuckle it, but free as if one was never bound. That was the message that flowed our of my spirit like a river of fire. Oh, God is
so, so good.
Yes, the kingdom of God does suffer violence. I had been bound in sin and for a season the kingdom of darkness had me bound in gagged, but the violent also take God’s kingdom by
force, and the gates of hell cannot stand against it no matter how deep, how
dark, how sinister that hell may be. Jesus is greater.
Romans 8 says that the law of the Spirit has set us free, so
now what? Why do we sit and binge Netflix when we are still bound? What if we
got spiritually violent? What if we refused to accept the dominion of Satan
exercising any authority over our lives, our hearts, our bodies, or our
relationships? That experience showed me what is possible if we will but seize the victory that Jesus seized for us!
I love these words; “For
sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under law, but under
grace.” (Romans 6:14) I wonder if that is ultimately why Moses could not enter
into the Promised Land, because the law came through Moses, and the law will
never take us into the divine power and glory of righteousness. But grace and truth came through Christ, and sin has no power or authority to exercise
dominion over us anymore because of the beautiful, immeasurable,
costly gift of the Holy Spirit.
Labor to enter His rest...it is the only labor that is allowed. No sweat was allowed in the Holy of Holies because only people who work
will break a sweat! Paul says to labor to enter His rest by mixing the promises
with our faith (Hebrews 4:2). The word “mix”
in that passage is the same word used to describe chewing food to mix it with saliva
in order to digest it into the body.
“And Joshua said unto the children
of Israel, How long are ye slack to go to possess the land, which the Lord God
of your fathers hath given you?” Joshua 18:3
So what about that mirror? Christ in me, the hope of glory. The Holy Spirit, the
children of God, and the whole earth are groaning and travailing to bring forth
mature children of God who love like Him, who talk like Him, and who believe
like Him.
Sometimes people talk as if there is some tension between law and grace, but I really believe that is just because we don’t understand grace. The first step that I took on my journey back to God was when the Holy Spirit showed me that grace was not just a ticket to heaven, but divine transformation by Dr. Jesus! It is not about “law or grace” rather, it’s about trying or believing. The difference between law and grace is not the goal, but the way that we arrive at the goal. We will never arrive by keeping commands and trying to be good. We "arrive" by faith in Christ, until that faith births His very nature, and we begin to see that His life is our life, and our life is His life until we behold Him….as in a mirror.
"You who are trying to be justified by the law have been severed from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the hope of righteousness." Gal 5:4-5
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